Terra Firma
by Mfate
Summary: Five years after gaining the title of Lord Marhsal, Riddick heeds the call of his blood to return to his home world. There he is met with a surprise that makes him realize that much of what he believes about himself and his life is a lie. Read AN. RR!
1. Prologue

_Disclaimer: Any and all characters associated with the films Pitch Black & The Chronicles of Riddick are property of USA Films, Universal Studios, Radar, and One Race Productions. They have been used without permission and are used for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringements are intended. All other characters are the author's own creation and belong to the author._

**Terra Firma **

Prologue

Faith has always been a dangerous force, especially where humans are concerned. That is why we Elementals have always relied on logic. Faith has forced men to murder and destroy, and it has driven others to forsake their own lives for the ideal of the greater good.

Five years ago, when the Furyan Riddick took over the throne of the Lord Marshal, the leader of the Necromonger theocracy, I could foresee the restoration of balance in the universe. Balance is everything, it is essential and it is what Elementals strive to maintain. What I did not foresee was the schism that would result from Riddick's rise to the throne, what I did not foresee was an end to perhaps the vilest, most violent faiths in the history of man.

There is a balance again, even with a Furyan Lord Marshal, but the balance came with a high price.

Riddick found the truth for us all by traveling to the Threshold of the Underverse, and like his predecessor, he came back changed. But this change did not affect Riddick like it had Zhylaw; it changed Riddick in the sense that he became stronger and more resolute to change the universe. Of course, this change had nothing to do with a newfound sense of honor; Riddick was and perhaps always will be a beast, a killer of men. But he returned changed nonetheless.

The Threshold was nothing more than a rift in space, something akin to a black hole, it was a rift that led to nowhere, the energy being sucked down too much for the rift to bear, thus much energy was expelled…it was this cosmic energy that had transformed Zhylaw, and it was this energy that pushed Riddick to dissolve the Necromonger Empire.

It was the commander Toal who represented those who were True Believers in Necroism, and it was he who took over half of the Empire toward the Threshold. Faith is an illogical notion, and all that followed Toal may have found their Underverse, but at what price?

What was left, and where Riddick sat, was those who had been converted against their will…those who remembered their lives before conversion and longed for that life again. Riddick was the reluctant leader, surrounded by those who doubted him, those who hated him. Three years into his reign, Riddick was left with half the Necromonger fleet and those who had renounced their conversion and followed Riddick out of obligation to return the universe to balance.

Riddick did not fight to keep his throne; he even gave Toal the Necropolis to take to the Threshold. Riddick now had an army, but he was not out to conquer and convert, he was out to restore. With every planet that had been destroyed, Riddick returned to repopulate, destroy the Icons that marred the landscape and slowly erase the Necromonger faith from the minds of the universe.

Riddick was no hero and he was not a savior, but he was a man consumed in his own regrets, his own mistakes. He was a Furyan, a killer, and he was ruthless. Those who followed him now were those who either followed him unconditionally as the Lord Marshal, or were those who also were consumed by the same type of regret as Riddick…only wanting to set things right.

I was surprised to find that the Lord Vaako was one of Riddick's strongest supporters. He could be trusted…only after his scheming wife was disposed of… Dame Vaako died quickly in the hands of her husband…her neck broken, her poison tongue silenced. Lord Vaako now stood at Riddick's side as his right hand man, a creature very much like Riddick…a killer and a warrior. Vaako knew he was never meant to be a leader, he was meant to be the steadfast support of a great leader, thus he stood with Riddick, much to the Furyan's chagrin.

So Riddick took up residence in his own ship, sending others to restore the damage done while he wallowed inside his own guilt after losing the only woman he loved…Kyra.

Five years…and Riddick finally decided to turn his attentions to his home world, a world he only knew in dreams and through a woman who haunted his dreams…Shirah. His state of being had changed through the five years on the throne, but I knew…as did Vaako, that it was time to return to where it all began…where Riddick became a figure of prophecy and where he would ultimately find his redemption.

TBC...


	2. Ch 1 Welcoming Pain Again

****

Chapter One – Welcoming Pain Again

Vaako had to admit to himself, from time to time, that he did miss his wife. She had been the most vile and manipulative bitch, but she had been his. After five years, the empty spot at his side had been filled with all sorts of women, none of them as intelligent or as strong as Dame Vaako. However, he did not wish for anyone like his wife to stand at his side now. Besides, he had more important things to think about than curing loneliness.

Vaako hated thinking about his wife…he hated all the feelings that his memories brought with his wife. Ever since his reversion, he began feeling more and more, and it was not only pain that had returned again to his mind. He was angry, angry with his wife; angry at what he had done in the name of a faith that was never truly his own. This anger was what propelled him, and it was his motivating force to do whatever it took to find forgiveness. Vaako had once believed in God, he believed in a man who had died for his sins and had been resurrected…before his Necro conversion…and he was beginning to believe in it again. He had read, that long ago his original faith had been one of the bloodiest in human history…but Necroism had passed beyond his original faith in being the bloodiest, the most vile of faiths.

Forgiveness was all he wanted…and he was attaining it by standing next to the Lord Marshal…a man that everyone who remained called Riddick.

Riddick was no saint, not by any means, but he was so much more than Zhylaw…Riddick did not want power, he was not a megalomaniac, and most of all, he was full of such fascinating emotion…as if he reveled in feeling pain.

Pain…Vaako had missed it.

He stood now on the bridge of his frigate, glancing at the Navigators and noting that despite being reverted, they could still use the Necro technology. These men were no longer merely tools, but men…men with feelings, men with pain, and men like Vaako who felt that they too needed redemption.

"We are fast approaching the outer planets of the Furyan System, my lord," one of the Navigators informed Vaako.

"Good. Set your course for the main planet; scan for life. The original Icon signal should be broadcasting coordinates."

"Aye, aye."

Vaako gazed through the holo-screens as the frigate slowed, passing icy gas giants in a system of twelve planets. Furya was the fifth planet from the large yellow sun, a planet left for dead over thirty-five years ago. It was planet of legend now, the home world of Riddick…the planet where Zhylaw had sealed his fate by killing millions.

Vaako's own home world had been destroyed, but after Riddick's campaign to explore the possibility of reviving planets ravaged by Nercoism, Vaako learned that Zhylaw and his predecessors had not been so thorough. Life still existed on those planets…even human life on some. Vaako had been tempted to return to his own world, to see what was left and what there was to rebuild…but he was not ready…he had not repented enough for the horrors he had to help inflict on the universe.

"My lord, we are picking up Icon signatures, the Icons are still transmitting, but the transmission is garbled and the information corrupted," a yeoman informed Vaako.

Vaako frowned, his hands behind his back as he began pacing before the holo-screens. The Icons broadcasted information to the Necromonger fleet. This information contained data on the planet, if there was life, if there was human life…as well as planetary conditions. Why the inventors of the Icon created a weapon as well as surveillance device was beyond Vaako. Perhaps the creators had clung to a hope that they were not part of the Campaign to conquer, convert and kill…perhaps it was device to allow the Necromongers to collect any stragglers who had escaped conversion, Vaako could only speculate. However, for the data stream to be corrupted meant only one thing…survivors.

In the years since Vaako's conversion, he had heard reports of survivors on converted planets trying to mask their presence by tapping into the power sources of the Icons… He had also heard that many survivors had managed to infiltrate the central core of the Icons and steal the power nodes, using them to begin to rebuild their destroyed technology. On occasion, a fleet would return to such planets and annihilate the remaining life…the Necromongers had no need for such persistent Breeders. If they escaped conversion once, they would not escape from death upon second harvesting.

But times had changed, and now the life that Vaako had been ordered to search out and destroy…he now nurtured.

He was lost in his own memories, his own desires for redemption that he did not notice that the ship was ready to enter the atmosphere of a dark planet, hidden under the cover of heavy cloud.

"…picking up sporadic human life signs in the southern hemisphere. Our sensors are picking up scattered settlements within one hundred miles of several Icons…only one is transmitting a corrupted signal."

"Where?" Vaako asked, his eyes moving across the holo-screens and the dark clouds below him from orbit.

"A large settlement in the ruins of what was once a city… The old records show that the name of the city was Kurga, the seat of the kingdom of the northern continent. Scans cannot pinpoint the exact number human life signs, but we estimate that the number is over ten thousand."

"Technology?" Vaako asked again, masking his surprise at the number of humans amassed in what had once been a capital city.

"Our scans are being reflected, but we have picked up ion trails…ships have been on and off the planet within the last three years."

Vaako frowned. It was possible that Slavers had come and gone off the planet…or Rykengolls, Vaako's true God forbid… The universe feared the Necromongers, but Rykengolls were living nightmares, and in the last two years, their recruitment of followers to the strange religion had become very militaristic. It was a concern that had not passed unnoticed.

"Atmospheric conditions?" Vaako continued, shaking off a memory of seeing a Rykengoll long ago.

"It seems that after Conversion protocol, the atmosphere was depleted and the planet was racked with catastrophic storms. In the last twenty years, the atmosphere has stabilized and the planet's seasonal cycle has returned to normal. Currently the northern hemisphere is experience a deep winter season."

Vaako's pale eyes watched the movement of cloud. His orders were to scout the conditions of the Lord Marshal's home world, to scout out any life… No order had been made of what to do if he did find life, just to find it, if it existed.

He considered contacting Riddick, but he knew, after five years standing with him, Riddick would want Vaako to learn everything he could about whatever situation was presented him…this time the situation was Furya. The rumor that the planet was cursed did not go unheeded by his crew, nor did the thought of whatever life lived on the planet's surface would not take kindly to the return of the Necromonger fleet.

But Vaako turned swiftly and barked orders…they were going to land.

* * *

When Vaako's sleek frigate landed in a zone between thick wilderness and the ruins of what had been Kurga, he stepped onto frozen ground, his armor not shielding him efficiently from the icy wind. The sky was gray and the wind blew in strong gusts. Vaako could not remember feeling so cold…not since before conversion.

The air smelled like cold…clean, stone and faintly of wood smoke. Somewhere a fire was burning. Snow was falling in huge flakes, coating everything in over six inches of snow…and under the snow, ice.

Vaako's dark eyes scanned the landing zone, the frozen skeletal trees that arched and whipped with every gust of snow. To the east was the ruins of what Vaako could see was once a great city. There were many structures still standing, all covered in snow. At the elevation of the landing zone, Vaako could look down and see streets, empty and white. But most of the city was rubble, overgrown and obscured. The furthest point that came to Vaako's immediate notice was a large structure that stood many stories upward into the snowy air. The snow had fallen away from spires of reddish stone, reaching up like claws to gouge the sky, it brought a memory of his home world and a place that had amazed Vaako as a child…a cathedral.

It was then Vaako realized that he knew almost nothing about the Furyan race besides their fierce war craft, their resilience, and at times questionable morals. He wondered what Furya had been like before Zhylaw's genocidal campaign. What god did Furyans worship? Were there writers, scientists, artists and wise men? Did mothers and fathers have children that they loved and raised to love?

Vaako wiped his eyes through his visor. His thoughts since renouncing Nercoism were often introspective and at times were marred with sorrow. He shook himself mentally as his men fanned out around him, using handheld scanners since losing the Lensors during the schism.

Vaako still carried a weapon, more out of habit than anything, and so did many of his men. But it had been rare in the last five years that he had to kill or defend himself. He did not miss killing, but from time to time, he missed the thrill of the fight.

It happened quickly, so quickly Vaako wondered if what he was seeing were real. The two point men fell, their blood arching through the icy air from gashes in their necks. When two more men fell to Vaako's right, the alarm was raised and his men moved back toward the ship.

Vaako could not see who had attacked, but as he stood motionless, only his eyes moving over the stone rubble he began to pick out shapes…human shapes, twenty or so, dressed in heavy cloaks lined with fur, the color blending in with the rubble, trees and stone. With his men behind him, some moving back onto the ship, the attack stopped. Vaako stood his ground, staring back at the figures materializing out of the ground, out of the rubble and trees. And when one figure stood out, stepping toward Vaako, he could see a bloody sword dripping to stain the snow.

The figure stopped within ten yards of Vaako and raised its fur-laden arm outward so that the bloody sword was pointed at Vaako's face.

"You wish for death by daring to come here, Necro. If you believe it is your 'due time,' by all means step forward to meet your fate," the voice boomed across the cold, indistinct and muffled by the cowl falling low of its head.

Vaako said nothing, noting that the other cloaked figures moved in closer and his men were preparing their weapons behind him. This was not what he had wanted when he set out to scout Furya, the days of mindless, bloody battle were over.

"My name is Vaako, and you are mistaken," he said firmly, moving so that his hands were nowhere near his dagger or his gun.

"Mistaken? Is that not a Necromonger frigate? Are those marks upon your armor not a sign that you are an accomplished warrior, the force of conversion?" the voice asked, and Vaako picked up quickly that the voice was female.

"I did not come here to convert or fight, my name is Vaako, first commander to the seventh Lord Marshal Riddick…"

"Riddick?" a voice hissed from the rubble.

Vaako paused as voices rang out from the snow, hisses and exclamations.

"This is my personal ship, with my personal crew, and you have killed four of my men. The Necromonger way is no more, the True Believers found their Underverse and Zhylaw, the man who left your world to rack and ruin, is dead."

More voices, shouting, blades being unsheathed filled the air, as well as the sound of Vaako's own men preparing to defend him. Vaako raised a hand, turning slightly to eye his men out of the edge of his helmet, and with proud obedience his men stood down.

"I do not lie to you, and I offer myself to your mercy. I will facilitate whatever means possible to show you the truth."

The figure, female by the sound of its voice, lowered her sword and let it disappear into the folds of her cloak.

"You will surrender yourself, Necro, as well as your men. This ship will not leave this planet until it is deemed that your words be true. If they are not, you and your men will never leave this planet alive."

Vaako nodded slightly, and the figure motioned to the others in the rubble, and for the first time since his forced conversion, Vaako found himself to be a hostage to another human.


	3. Ch 2 To the Threshold and Back Again

_Any and all characters associated with the films Pitch Black & The Chronicles of Riddick are property of USA Films, Universal Studios, Radar, and One Race Productions. They have been used without permission and are used for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringements are intended. All other characters are the author's own creation and belong to the author._

**Terra Firma**

Chapter Two – To the Threshold and Back Again

Richard B. Riddick almost felt like waving a smug good-bye to the thousands of ships that entered the rift to the Underverse, but he could not see them from where his ship sat thirty AUs away. He could imagine it though, having seen the rift for himself the first year of his reign. The ships would be sucked in, light would be bent and the ship would disappear. The Elemental had told him that it was most likely the ships were either crushed so immediately that the human eye could not see or it had passed into subspace and broken down to the atomic level… Either way, getting any closer than half an AU to the rift was suicide…and Riddick knew that the Necros were all about death…

Riddick listened to the command crew countdown the numbers, the thousands of ships disappearing off long-range scanners, and when only five remained, Riddick grinned.

"Glad to have them out of the way?" a wispy voice asked near his ear from where he sat on the command chair.

"Makes things less complicated, so yeah," he growled, moving his silver eyes to the Elemental at his left.

Aereon had not left Riddick, and it did not seem she was likely to for a very long time. Riddick did not complain even though the pompous bitch often tried his patience. She gave good advice, from time to time, and if he were going to continue on as the new Lord Marshal of the new Necromonger Empire, he was not going to be as stupid as to dismiss advice. Riddick was never one to consider any person an ally, he could never trust his fellow man, but Aereon had never brought him any grief…besides being that annoying voice of reason in his often-chaotic mind. But it had not been Aereon who had brought Riddick to where he was now…it was Riddick himself who had managed to end the Necromonger ways…it was Riddick who managed to keep half of an Empire under his control.

One thing Riddick could not discount was the loyalty of those who had not crossed the Threshold.

It had been Aereon who helped 'Those Who Remained' to regain their humanity and it had been Aereon who suggested that every man who remained begin to think of how to heal the universe. If Riddick was the iron fist, the warrior Lord Marshal, it was Aereon who was the empathetic mother…despite being a being of logic and air.

Aereon had coined the phrase 'Those Who Remained' as those who renounced Necroism and no longer dreamed of death. She was a fair judge, and Those Who Remained respected her wisdom.

But Riddick reminded Aereon on a regular basis that he was still the Lord Marshal and if he wanted, he could easily dispatch her.

Riddick sat back into his chair, thankful that the Necropolis had also crossed the Threshold. He much preferred his smaller destroyer compared to the nearly defenseless, bulky and morbidly designed Basilica ship. Riddick liked having the firepower.

His fleet was cut in half, but most of the ships that had slipped through the Threshold had been non-military ships…large ships housing the millions of converts, none of which had ever been used in offensive campaigns, therefore it was not a major loss to Riddick's mind. But still Riddick ruled an Empire of millions, and bit-by-bit, Those Who Remained were returning to their former lives, to their former worlds.

Riddick simply did not care if his army's numbers were slowly diminishing. He hadn't wanted an Empire to begin with… All he wanted was his freedom, and being the Lord Marshal of the remaining Necromonger Empire, all marks and paydays on his head had been repealed.

"My Lord, the last ship has passed the Threshold," one of the command crew announced.

Riddick paid little mind, but he could feel that all of those around him were exuding a mixture of grief, loss, relief and hope. The True Believers were gone and Necroism would never terrorize the universe again…or so many hoped.

"Let's get out of here…" Riddick growled to no one in particular, and soon the fleet, after witnessing the end of an age, fell in line to move on.

* * *

Riddick hardly slept. Of course, he had never slept much. It was part of his being, and it was part of his learned behavior after years in and out of Slam. But into his fourth year as the seventh Lord Marshal, it was dreams that kept him from sleeping.

It had begun back in Butcher Bay…visions of a woman and the strange landscape filled with graves. The woman was named Shirah and the planet was Furya. The dreams were not like the visions he had had telling him to wake his Furyan blood, his Furyan power. Instead these dreams were of the woman telling him to start his journey home.

There was one other dream that kept him from wanting to sleep…dreams of Kyra…dreams of Kyra dying.

"You have killed everything I know…"

Kyra's body had felt so fragile in his large hands, the beating her heart like that of a bird's, and when that heart stopped beating, he knew that he would never trust or love anyone again.

Her eyes haunted him, so clear at the moment of her death that he could see his own shined eyes in their depths. She did not blame him, she did not hate him, since the beginning, she had always been with him…

So he avoided sleep. If he thought about her, he would end up staring, locked up inside and oblivious to his surroundings.

It had been Vaako who talked with Riddick about Kyra. Vaako did not know the history, but soon learned that Kyra had been the last thread to Riddick's connection with his humanity.

Vaako had been the most surprising of all Those Who Remained. He had only asked for one thing in return for his loyalty to Riddick…the right to dispatch Dame Vaako in a manner befitting one who would betray Riddick, and scheme her way into a more powerful position. Riddick remembered that Dame Vaako was perhaps the most outspoken Necro against Riddick's rise to power. Riddick thought the bitch was beautiful, but far too charismatic and dangerous for her own good.

So, Dame Vaako was discretely disposed of and Vaako became the only man who Riddick could pretend to trust.

Pretending…it was something Riddick had developed a talent for. He pretended to give a shit when Aereon pushed for Those Who Remained to be restored to 'Breeder' status if the individual so desired. He pretend to give a fuck when Aereon pushed him to begin the 11th Campaign to repair the universe. And he ingeniously pretended to give a damn when some of Those Who Remained came to him for guidance. He had to keep up the pretense to keep the throne.

With Kyra's death, Riddick found it so easy to pretend anything.

But one thing he could not pretend or mask was the instinctual urge to return to Furya. Perhaps it had been the dreams of Shirah, or perhaps it was because his blood was calling out for home…or even perhaps it was his morbid curiosity to seek out the origin of his being. Either way, Riddick was going to go to Furya.

The encounter with the Threshold had changed him in only one way…it forced him to accept the inner beast, and do whatever it took to sate the beast's desires.

* * *

When Riddick gave Vaako the order to scout out Furya and explore the possibility of a safe return to his home world, Riddick expressed to his first commander that Vaako was to return with as much information as possible.

Who were the Furyans? Were there still any on the planet? Were there others, diaspora, making a pilgrimage home…just like he was? Was the planet inhabitable?

So many questions troubled Riddick…it was unlike him to wonder so…

But he knew Vaako would not dare disappoint him. It was obvious Vaako had his own convictions to do whatever he could to find his own form of forgiveness. As for Riddick, he knew that he was beyond redemption…and what hard ass would give a flying fuck about redemption?

Certainly not Richard B. Riddick.

So he traveled the galaxies in his destroyer, allaying fears and losing more and more of Those Who Remained to their formal lives…

"We all began as something else…"

Riddick had always been Riddick, and nothing, not even the title of Lord Marshal, was going to change that.

The last communication with Vaako's frigate had been just before the ship had entered the Furya system. The last sensor reading had tracked the frigate on the surface of the fifth planet…and then the signal was lost.

Riddick did not think so much of the loss of the signal, it happened at times when ships passed through scorched atmospheres after the old campaigns. Vaako was capable of taking care of himself…Vaako was a formidable warrior.

However, Aereon was increasingly disturbed as hours with no contact turned into days and days into several weeks. An agitated Aereon was an Elemental who seemed phase out even if there was not a breeze.

"How fast do you think this ship can make it to the Furyan system?" Aereon asked Riddick at the beginning of the second week of communication black out. "Do you not feel that something should be done to locate Vaako?"

Riddick growled. "Send another ship then." Once again, Aereon's subtle agitation was beginning to wear on Riddick's last nerve. He cursed under his breath as he headed toward the bridge of his destroyer, Aereon on his heels.

Aereon raised an eyebrow in reply…surely Riddick, the seventh Lord Marshal was not ready to face his past?

TBC...


End file.
